Honors Thesis Presentation Day
The UCA Honors College held its Honors Thesis Presentation Day on Friday, May 4 . More than 45 UCA faculty members worked with Honors students as advisors on their thesis projects. The student presenters and their advisors were:
Wilson Alobuia
Alzheimer’s Disease: Challenges, Successes, and the Way Forward
Advisor: Bhupinder Vohra
Derek Anderson
Why We Believe in the Hot Hand: Causes of Misperceptions of NBA Statistics
Advisor: Patrick Carmack
Dulce Armas
Itadakimasu: Sushi, Globalization, and Japanese National Identity
Advisor: Adam Frank
Brett Bailey
The Use of Professional Sports to Model Economics
Advisor: Joseph McGarrity
Lennon Bates
Pictures of the Past: Creating a New Rock Art Chronology in the Lower Pecos
Advisor: Karen Steelman
Ty Bittle
Borderlands: Short Works in Near Future Hard Science Fiction
Advisor: Phil Frana
Luke Boroughs
Recumbents, an Untapped Bicycle Movement
Advisor: David Neilson
Lindsey Cason
The Real World: The Importance of Post-Graduate Financial Literacy
Advisor: John Bratton
TsungYen Chen
Nanotechnology, Precious Metals, and Personalized Treatment: The Scientific and Social Impacts of Nanomaterials in Medicine
Advisor: Donald Perry
Sarah Clarke
Gamers, Lovers, and NPCs: How Emotional Connections Formed with Artificial Beings are Affecting Our Lives and Changing our Society
Advisor: Phil Frana
Ayvee Cruz
Music and Lyrics in Communication between Romantic Partners
Advisor: Adam Frank
Megan Danielson
Tearing Down Trauma: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Child Welfare through Child Advocacy Centers
Advisor: Cynthia Lea
Brittany Edwardes
Muslim Feminine Self-Discovery through the Lens of Fiction
Advisor: Garry Powell
David Friesen
Crime in the U.S.: A Statistical Analysis of Social and Economic Variables by State
Advisor: Paul Jensen
Jessica Gambill
“Eat Your Carrots!” : The Role of Vitamin A in Inflammation and Immune Response
Advisor: Melissa Kelley
Jeremiah Glusica
No Pain, More Gain: A Developing Musician’s Exploration of the Alexander Technique
Advisor: Stephen Feldman
Austin Hall
Homosexuality in Cinema: The Hero or the Villain?
Advisor: Cynthia Lea
Bryan Head
Drug Money: A Look into the FDA, Pharmaceutical Companies, and their Effect on Healthcare
Advisor: Brian Russell
Kathy Hill
Colonialism, Capitalism, and Patriarchy: Causes of Internet-Initiated Relationships between Filipinas and American Men
Advisor: Adam Frank
Andy Hoelscher
Down and Out: How Policy and Person-Blame Perpetuate Poverty and Homelessness, and How Service Can Reverse Them
Advisor: Phillip Spivey
Cody Hudson
Building with the Legos of Life: Analysis and Development of the FGK-DF Model for Predicting Local Tertiary Structures of Proteins
Advisor: Bernard Chen
Justin Hughes
The Optimal Allocation of Faculty Across Colleges of Business
Advisor: Joseph McGarrity
Jordan Huntze
Swing Vote: A Look at the Changing Political Attitudes of UCA Students
Advisor: Suzanne Booher
Danny Keil
More than Skin Deep: Exploring Phylogenetics and the Species Concept through Copula sivickisi
Advisor: Benjamin Waggoner
Shannon Kelly
Four Decades Later and 200,000 Dead: The Evolution of the U.S. Coup in Guatemala into Genocide
Advisor: Joseph Green
Tommy Kennedy
Work Hard, Play Harder: Dynamics Around Athletes Suffering Injury
Advisor: Larry Simmons
Eliza Killey
We’re Not All Bra Burners: Dispelling the Myths of Feminism
Advisor: Mary Marotte
Doug Knight
How Long These Waves Have Been Crashing: Reflections in Poetic Nonfiction
Advisor: Terry Wright
Jenny Knight
The Distressingly Indeterminate yet Indispensable Nature of Democracy: A Case Study of an Urban Agriculture Policy in Conway, Arkansas
Advisor: Wesley Craiglow
Rebecca Moye
Are You Smarter Than an Asian? Curricular Differences Between the United States and Asia and Their Effects on Students
Advisor: Jean McGehee
Elizabeth Naglak
A Drink or Two Will Do: Intervening in Binge Drinking in College Students
Advisor: David Starkey
Lynn Nguyen
Vietnam: Human Rights Inequality and its Reflection in the Healthcare of Women
Advisor: Cynthia Lea
German Raul Perez Bakovic
The Masking of Democracy: Understanding XXI Century Bolivia
Advisor: Adam Frank
Kenneth Petre
Empathy in Therapy and the Holistic Paradigm
Advisor: Jennifer Brinegar
Kate Pitts
Fracking for a Fair Price: Managing Arkansas’s Resources and the Debts of the Natural Gas Industry
Advisor: Allison Wallace
Kim Risi
The Man in The Moon: A Short Film
Advisor: Michael Gunter
Mallory Roberson
An Act of Bearing W(h)it(e)ness: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future Struggle to Desegregate Public Schools in Central Arkansas
Advisor: Taine Duncan
Nicholas Rogers
It’s Not About the Damn Hills, the Curves, or the Roads; It’s About You and Them: An Ethnographic Study of Road Cycling: My Struggles, My Success, My Journey, On A Bike
Advisor: Adam Frank
Cathrine Schwader
Steaking a Claim: Symbolic Meanings of Meat and the Importance of Vegetarianism
Advisor: Douglas George
Chip Shaw
Paying to Die: Navigating the Journey of Estate Planning
Advisor: Tom Courtway
Rachel Sims
Conscientização: A Short Story Inspired by the Life and Works of Paulo Freire
Advisor: Jennifer Parrack
Greg Sketas
Big Considerations: Analyzing the Ethics of Childhood Obesity
Advisor: Benjamin Rider
Natasha Skiver
Adapt or Die: The Organic Answer to the Problems of Monoculture
Advisor: Allison Wallace
Zachary Stallings
The Untapped Potential of Lucid Dreaming: A Scientific Journal
Advisor: Phil Frana
Sam Tamo
Are All Who Wander Lost? Assyrian-Americans as a Nation Without a Territory
Advisor: R. Shepherd
Skip Thurman
Adventures in Mathematics Through Signal Processing
Advisor: Stephen Addison
Naru Tsukuda
Japanese Bureaucratic Challenges in Response to the Tohoku Earthquake
Advisor: Adam Frank
Shalisa Walker
Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Services in Arkansas
Advisor: Sharon Ross
Ron Walter
Sky Begins to Storm: A Documentary on the Spring Tornadoes of 2011
Advisor: Scott Meador
Lesley Waterson
Going Faster: Using Bus Rapid Transit as Public Transportation in Central Arkansas
Advisor: Michael Yoder
Clint White
The Gospel According to J. K. Rowling: The Christian Ideal of Love in the Harry Potter Series
Advisor: Sonya Fritz
Sarah Wray
Who Did I Just Give That Morphine To? The Effects of Stress in Nursing School
Advisor: Mary Garnica
Andrew Yu
The Smart Phone’s Use in Higher Education: Exploring the Digital Divide Between Teachers and Students
Advisor: Summer Bartczak
Spring Core II Service Projects
Allison Wallace’s Core II class reached out to UCA’s international students last semester by participating in conversation-partner programming on campus and by hosting a pot-luck-and-karaoke night for internationals. The event was held April 5 in the McCastlain Ballroom and had American, Chinese, Japanese, Saudi, Latino, German, and Dutch students eating, singing and line-dancing together into the night. Core II students completed research papers on the challenges and rewards experienced by foreign nationals who come to the US to study.
Adam Frank’s Core II class worked on immigration related service projects last semester. In addition to volunteering individually at health clinics and tutoring ESL students from Conway High School, Core II students volunteered on March 31, for an immigration and naturalization assistance day for legal permanent residents in the Little Rock area. The all-day event, held at the Arkansas Workforce Center, provided free legal services to immigrants completing paperwork to apply for citizenship. On April 24, the Core II students held a fundraiser to educate the UCA community about the DREAM Act, help establish El Zocalo immigrant community center in Little Rock, and share student research on immigration issues. The event included food and live music.
Philip Frana’s Core II class hosted an appreciation dinner for UCA second and third-shift staff members, two groups that work hard to provide services to campus residents long after daytime employees have gone home. The dinner, which was held in the McCastlain Ballroom on April 23 featured a banquet prepared by the students with the help of alumni chef Joshua Simmons, a live Honors student musical quartet, donated photographic and videographic services, table decorations and a special drawing. All students who worked on the project wrote research papers on the challenges faced by working families in America and abroad in the 21st century.
Doug Corbitt’s Core II group partnered with Conway’s Chicks for Children Foundation to support the Seeds Children’s Home in Kitale, Kenya. The home provides food, shelter, and schooling for children from the nearby Kipsongo Slum where, at present, there are more than 200 who are either orphaned or abandoned. The support takes two forms: First, they helped raise funds to provide space for an additional 100 children, and, second, they fostered relationships with the children already in the home via an exchange of letters and videos.
Donna Bowman’s Core II group began with the idea to help Honors senior Jordan Karpe close the feedback loop on his thesis project — a large mural he designed and executed, with the help of other Honors students, in Farris Honors Hall. Believing that public art is incomplete until the public has been engaged, the students designed a survey for Farris residents (current and prospective) and a focus group to gather feedback on the project, and to provide Karpe with public opinion to consider as he plans additional works in Farris Hall public spaces. In order to involve the campus community in a conversation about public art, the students created maps and informational flyers about notable art sites on campus. Community members who received the information during the “SweetArt” event in late April had a chance to complete a brief survey about their awareness of and opinions about public art projects at UCA, contribute to an interactive installation at Alumni Circle, and get a homemade treat for their participation. Students worked with the Public Art Committee to communicate their findings.
Southern Regional Honors Council Annual Conference
Honors Dean Rick Scott and Associate Professor Philip Frana presented papers at the 40th annual conference of the Southern Regional Honors Conference (SRHC) in Tampa, Florida, on April 1. Frana is the executive secretary-treasurer of the SRHC. More than 420 Honors students, faculty, and directors presented papers at the Tampa SRHC conference.
Rick Scott, co-presenting with Greg Lanier of the University of West Florida, delivered a talk on “Developing Student Learning Outcomes for an Honors Curriculum.” Using the UCA Honors College as a case study, Scott and Lanier laid out a step-by-step process for constructing a curriculum assessment plan centered on student learning outcomes. They discussed how assessment domains are designed and identified, how student learning outcomes (and accompanying rubrics) for each domain are written, and how these student learning outcomes may be subsequently mapped across the curriculum. They concluded by talking about how student assignments are used to evaluate proficiency level of the learning outcomes and how the resulting assessment data can be generated, stored, and evaluated.
Philip Frana in his talk, “What Honors Website Visitors Want: A Case Study,” used site visitor analysis packages and surveys to gather rich insights into Honors website traffic and recruiting activity. The site at UCA, for example, encompasses 54 publicly available pages arranged into five sections. He found that there are two main recruiting routes, about equal in size and rather exclusive, into Honors College. One route is by receipt of a recruiting letter and visit to the website (“paper to web”). The other is by personal contact with a student or staff member (“word of mouth”). Frana commented on the need to overhaul certain pages, the importance of site visitor flows, and site content in high demand. He also made specific recommendations on access by mobile devices, like smart phones, and through QR codes.
Sophomore Commencement and Community Service Projects
The Honors College has developed a new requirement this spring for students minoring in Honors Interdisciplinary Studies that arose from thinking critically about its program. The faculty asked whether the Honors College is living up to its promises. During the recruiting process, prospective student and their parents are told that the program provides unique teaching and learning opportunities capable of transforming students’ lives, producing citizens, scholars and leaders. How exactly does the Honors College accomplish that, and how do its faculty members know it’s working?
To answer those questions the Honors College administration examined the recent and influential recommendations by George Kuh, published in 2008 by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. He identified 10 high impact educational practices that studies had shown to be transformative of student lives. Here are nine of the ten:
1. First Year Experiences
2. Common Core Curriculum
3. Living/Learning Communities
4. Writing-Intensive Courses
5. Collaborative Assignments and Projects
6. Undergraduate Research
7. Diversity/Global Learning/Study Abroad
8. Internships
9. Capstone Courses and Projects
The program engages in all of these, but the prior assessment plan did not address these, specifically. In the past six months Honors College faculty has built an assessment plan to determine how effective these practices are. The plan put into sharp relief a tenth high impact practice, namely, Service Learning and Civic Engagement. Since citizenship stands together with scholarship and leadership as the central program goals for its students, where does community service fit into the Honors College?
The assessment plan showed that civic engagement could be introduced in the spring of the freshman year through service learning projects in Honors Core II, a practice that has been in place for two years. It could return at a more complex level in the capstone course, Senior Seminar, and that has also been in place for two years. What was missing, the assessment plan revealed, is an occasion or a series of occasions in which students could develop proficiency in the skills of civic service. Out of that realization the sophomore matriculation procedure was changed this spring. Honors College sophomores were asked in February to revisit the public service essay that they submitted as part of the application process, to re-examine their core values, connect them to an instance of public need and finally develop a plan for civic service that they will carry out during the minor in Honors Interdisciplinary Studies.
On April 7, sophomores gathered with alumni and faculty to learn of these plans. Sophomores gave formal presentations that were evaluated by alumni moderators, and the plans will be assessed by faculty members. Beginning this summer and fall, rising juniors in the Honors College will undertake their community service plans. Following is a list of the community service projects:
Kaleigh Angleton
The Necessity of Hunger Prevention
Sarah Atkins
Domestic Violence and the Give Back a Smile Program
Marni Bayles
It’s Okay to Read Brontë: Bringing Literacy Back to the Secondary Educational System
Tiffany Bradshaw
Support for Teenage Moms: Be a Friend when All Others Turn their Backs
Blake Brizzolara
Poverty and Hunger in America
Emily Broad
Improving Literacy with Americorps’ Ready To Learn Program
Jillian Browder
Lighting the Fire: Inspiring America’s Forgotten Children
Sarah Carlock
Inspiring Young Minds to Pursue Science
Jared Cochran
Vaccinations through Fundraising for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Amanda Coppock
Watch Your Language: A Plea for Cultural and Linguistic Awareness
Sarah Correll
Women Run Arkansas: Health and Fitness for a Better State
Hannah Culwell
Environmental Awareness and the Arts: Crafting a New Perspective Among Today’s Youth
Lindsey Dacus
Starting on a High Note: The Lasting Impact of Music on a Child’s Education
Julie Davis
The Bad, the Bad, and the Ugly: Becoming Actively Aware about Hydraulic Fracturing in Arkansas
Nirja Desai
The Environment: Be Aware or Beware!
Jade Edwards
Autism Awareness: Piecing Together the Puzzle
Ethan Espe
People Helping Potential Pets JDFH Presentation
Stephanie Eubanks
Girls Gone Wild: The Rise of Teen Pregnancy
Jordan Fletcher
The Psychology of Happiness: Making Positivity Contagious
Rachael Galloway
Can You Spot a Smile at Arkansas Children’s Hospital?
Jon Whitt Golden
Conversations with Cancer Patients
Jenni Goodwin
Obesity in the U.S: The ‘Supersize Me’ Epidemic
Hayley Harp
Helping the Homeless with Bethlehem House
Chelsea Harvey
Bridging The Gap: Technology Throughout The Generations
Taylor Hicks
The Youth Theater of Today: Every Kid Should Be an Actor
Nathaniel Idrissa Moussa
Providing Access to Basic Medical Care to the Poor Community of Niamey
Logan Jones
Detrimental Dental Hygiene
Grace Kellner
Increasing Recycling on UCA Campus
Katrina Kimble
Making Peace: Ending School Bullying With Multicultural Literature
Nick Lensing
Changing Mindsets and Promoting Safety in the Weight Room
Erin Leonard
Adopting a Grandparent: Making the World a Better Place One Grandparent at a Time
Ashley Long
One World, One Destiny, One Life: Diminishing Poverty One Child at a Time
Sarah Lukacs
Making Science Fun
Melissa Magdefrau
Altruistically Changing the Face of Homelessness
Tabitha McCool
Paws for Heroes: Providing Service Dogs for Returning Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans
Luke Moix
No Child Left Behind: UCA Style
Aaron Owen
Greeks Give Back: A One Day Service Project Unifying Greeks and the Community
Ashlyn Palmer
Remember the Artists: The Importance of Art and Music Programs in Schools
Sara Paxton
City of Hope Outreach: A Different Approach to Local Poverty
Sergioivan Perez Bakovic
Opening the Door
Adam Price
Skewed Views on the State of Healthcare in the United States
Hannah Ray
Collecting Change to Make a Change
Kirby Richardson
Heaven on Earth: Engaging Religious Diversity through Interfaith Dialogue
Brooke Scarbrough
Water, Soil, Sunlight and Elbow Grease: Community Connectedness in Faulkner CountyVia the Urban Farming Project
Cruz Segura
Political Reform through Educated Voting
Stephen Sivils
The Least of These
Kaitlin Smith
Seniors Day Out at Camp Aldersgate: Caring for Seniors
Lindsey Stepp
Once Upon a Time: Sharing Culture through Fairy Tales
Nick Stevens
Fundraising for the Backs of Africa
Kinzey Traphagan
Broken to Beautiful
Kyle Turetzky
Wisdom in Living Memories
Meredith Tyree
Preserving the Present to Frame a Better Future: Photography and Displaced Youth
Madalyn Van Valkenburg
Supporting Local Growers and Building an Organic Community
Branson White
Disc Golf and its Effect on the Underprivileged Life
Logan Whittington
Gender and Sexual Equality
Shasta Williams
Becoming Aware: Prison Overcrowding in Arkansas
Holly Williamson
It’s Worse Than You Think: Prevalence of Violence Against Women
Ashton Wills
Francis Friday
Stephanie Winfield
Deaf Awareness: Into a Silent World
Jacob Womack
Helping to fight childhood obesity with NFL Play60
Ryan Yan
Cultural Awareness
Featured Alumnus: Matt Taylor w/art
Matt Taylor (Class of ’07; major: Music Education, minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies) is graduating this month with his Doctor of Musical Arts in Saxophone Performance from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, located in Coral Gables, Florida.
Matt writes: “When I first stepped on campus at UCA, I was very sure of who I was and what I wanted to be. At least, that’s what I thought! All my life I wanted to be a musician, and certainly the world of music is my home. But to tell the truth, I prefer to think of myself as a storyteller, using concerts to share the lives of the extraordinary people we encounter every day, awakening people to the music around them, and connecting the two to help people learn to appreciate life’s splendid soundtrack.
“I have been fortunate to get to meet and work with some very inspiring musicians since I left Arkansas. When I was living in Washington, DC, pursuing my master’s degree and founding a new music ensemble at the University of Maryland, I was able to perform numerous times at the John F. Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra and various chamber groups. Now I spend the majority of my time in Miami, Florida, where I work frequently with the New World Symphony as their first-call saxophonist. Also here in Miami, I am a fellow of the Henry Mancini Institute, which is a group of musicians that specializes in crossover Jazz/Classical/Pop music, and musimelange, a chamber ensemble that performs evening-length concerts in a patron’s home. This past year, I also founded a trio based in New York City and Miami that commissions composers to write new music, and has begun to perform wild and wacky concerts all over the place. Since moving to Miami, I have excitedly participated in the world premier performances of almost twenty new works, including pieces by composers Mason Bates, Michael Daugherty, John Corigiano, Steven Bryant, John Mackey, and many others.
“Most of my own performances center on a specific theme or idea and tend to involve collaborations with other artists—especially integrating dance, theatrical lighting, poetry, and electronica with contemporary classical music. It’s pretty clear that my ‘interdisciplinary’ performances are firmly rooted in the education that I received in the Honors College, with a faculty and administration that encouraged me to take chances while providing me with the support that I needed to take those risks.
“As far as I know, there are still many more stories to tell, and as long as people are willing to listen, I’ll be shouting from the rooftops! Many exciting opportunities are on the horizon, including concerts all over the country and – coming up – a South American tour with my trio in October. I am very grateful that I get to spend my life doing something that I care about: helping people experience sound in a new way, and sharing the stories of exciting, inspiring people along the way. I hope to come back to Arkansas sometime soon, and any time I run into a fellow Arkansan, I am quick to tell them about my life in Conway—though a lot of the time, I prefer to say ‘just outside of Toad Suck!’”
Featured Student: Alisha Neblett
Alisha Neblett, a senior from Little Rock, is an English and Spanish major with an Honors Interdisciplinary Studies minor. Her studies gave her various opportunities to pursue and explore her interest in world literatures and cultures and the questions of identity that surround both of these topics. In her sophomore year, she conducted human subject research in order to investigate the difference between foreign language classes in secondary schools in Tanzania and the United States in order to note how the schools’ approaches to foreign language studies affects second language acquisition. In her junior year, she presented a paper at the UCA English Graduate Conference titled “‘The Black Dog’ and the ‘Tawny Strumpet’: Expressions of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.” The paper used two Shakespearean tragedies, Titus Andronicus and Antony and Cleopatra, to show how the stereotypes of darker-skinned people affect their stage presence throughout the plays.
Moreover, her interests converged in her Honors Interdisciplinary Studies thesis titled “Mujeres de Magia y Patria: Women’s Defining Roles in Latin America and its Magic Realism.” Her thesis used four Latin American novels to show how magic realism and its interweaving of everyday routine with magical elements empowers the female characters and their position in the home in order to parallel women’s roles within Latin American feminism and nationalism. She discovered that while these female characters are seen in mostly domestic roles, they are influential in defining the family and their response to various societal and political influences. Women within the history of Latin American feminism and nationalism used their position as mothers and grandmothers to cry for rights and reform.
In the summer before her senior year, Alisha had the opportunity to further experience Latin American culture through her study abroad trip to San Jose, Costa Rica thanks to a study abroad grant from the Honors College. For five weeks, she lived with a Costa Rican host family, took two Spanish immersion classes, and volunteered at a home for abandoned and neglected children. “Language is about connections—connections with people and connections with different cultures. An Honors education is about seeing those connections between people and ideas. My experience with Honors helped prepare me to approach the new environment with the desire to understand the new perspectives that I encountered in Costa Rica.”
Along with academics, Alisha has been a member of a variety of organizations, yet over the past two years she has been significantly involved as secretary and then vice-president of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honors society. In this organization, Alisha was involved in Banned Books Week, in which students read banned books aloud in the Student Center Courtyard in order to raise awareness about issues of censorship in American schools and university. “While I understand that teachers, especially in elementary and secondary schools, must consider the age and maturity level of their students, censorship often prevents students from reading literature written by minorities and people of other cultures. Banned Books Week represents an effort to show all the various voices and perspectives that have been silenced.” Alisha has also been involved in Chi Alpha Campus Ministries serving as a leader over the past year. Serving on leadership for Chi Alpha provided her with a way of expressing her faith and also helping other people in a variety of different ways. Through this organization, Alisha also started helping with international student orientation and the conversation partner programs that allowed her to meet various new friends and hear about their stories about their experiences at home and their impressions of life in the United States.
After her graduation in May, Alisha plans to attend graduate school at either Boston University or the University of Pennsylvania in order to pursue a degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). This degree will allow her to work with college students or adults who desire to speak English. She either hopes to work with immigrant populations within the United States or adults in Latin American countries. “I am very grateful for the education I received at the University of Central Arkansas,” Alisha adds, “for it presented me with invaluable opportunities and encouraging faculty that helped me develop my interests and pursue a career in which I can always keep learning and listening to people’s stories.”
UCA’s 2012 Fulbright Results
Brittany Edwardes has been awarded an English Teaching Assistantship to Malaysia for the 2012-13 academic year. Edwardes graduated in May with a major in English and an Honors minor in Interdisciplinary Studies. She spent the spring semester of 2011 studying social sciences and English at Mahidol University International College in Bangkok, Thailand, where she also taught English to children nine to twelve years old. Prior to that experience, Edwardes interned for the Peace Corps, Arkansas State AmeriCorps, and the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute. Upon her return from Malaysia, she plans to begin graduate work at the Clinton School for Public Service.
Kathy Hill has been awarded an English Teaching Assistantship to South Korea for the 2012-13 academic year. Hill graduated in May with a major in Sociology and an Honors minor in Interdisciplinary Studies. In the summer of 2011, she interned at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. During her time at UCA, she has been active in the Sociology Club and at the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas. Upon her return from South Korea, she plans to begin graduate school in International Relations.
Signe Larson has been designated an alternate in her pursuit of an English Teaching Assistantship to Italy for the 2012-13 academic year. This means that she will receive the award only if someone who finished ahead of her in the competition declines the award. In December 2010, Larson graduated with a major in Biology and an Honors minor in Interdisciplinary Studies. She spent the spring of 2009 studying at Lorenzo de Medici Institute in Florence, Italy. She currently works as a laboratory assistant at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She has been accepted into the medical program at UAMS for fall 2012, but will defer matriculation if she gets the opportunity to use a Fulbright ETA in Italy. Of the thirteen students from UCA who began the application process in this year’s cycle, seven saw it through to completion.